Quebec court approves class-action lawsuit against Facebook over alleged discriminatory employment, housing ads
CTV
The Quebec Court of Appeal is allowing a class-action lawsuit against Facebook to proceed after the social media giant was accused of allowing advertisers to discriminate against Quebecers based on their age, race and gender in ads for jobs and housing.
The Quebec Court of Appeal is allowing a class-action lawsuit against Facebook to proceed after the social media giant was accused of allowing advertisers to discriminate against Quebecers based on their age, race and gender in ads for jobs and housing.
The lawsuit was originally launched in 2019 by a Quebec woman in her 60s who was searching for a job online and never saw ads for work on Facebook allegedly because of age-related filters in the company's advertising algorithm.
The Superior Court refused to approve the class-action suit in 2021, arguing that the proposed class definition was too broad. The woman appealed the ruling.
On Dec. 22, 2022, the appeal court approved the class-action lawsuit and allowed it to proceed. The panel of judges ruled that the number of Facebook users who could be implicated by the lawsuit "is not a reason to refuse authorization."
Audrey Boctor, a partner at the Montreal law firm that filed the application on behalf of the plaintiff, said excluding people from receiving job postings because of their age, race, or gender is a violation of Quebec's Charter of human rights and freedoms.
"Our position is that algorithmic discrimination that excludes people like women or older workers from receiving ads is just a modern form of the same type of discrimination that's clearly illegal under the Quebec charter," said Boctor in an interview Wednesday.
"I think the Court of Appeal recognizes that the law needs to needs to evolve with reality and how discrimination is actually alleged to be taking place."
